


Sequela

by AmberandSoda



Category: Fight Club (1999)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Translation Available, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23092855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberandSoda/pseuds/AmberandSoda
Summary: Tyler is gone and everything starts to crumble.
Relationships: Narrator/Marla Singer, Tyler Durden/Narrator
Kudos: 11





	1. English Version

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was originally written by me in Chinese three years ago. I recently translated it into English so I can share it with more people. I posted the Chinese version as the second chapter so you could read it if that’s your preferred language. All depictions of the characters are solely based on my own understanding of the film and are not meant to be used as a guide for anything in the real world.

I still cannot believe I blew out Tyler’s brain on top of the tallest skyscraper in L.A.

Ever since I opened up a hole in my own cheek, even functioning as a human being became a pain in the ass. Marla moved in to keep me company. Dear sweet Marla.  
I think I like her, at lease I used to. She doesn't think like I do. If you ask her, she’ll say the whole world is nothing but a waste yard. Human beings are just pop cans lying at the bottom of the dump, covered with sticky saccharin. Those with luck got buried, and those without end up in the recycle bin. Every single thing ever existed is trash, trash that she’s ever ready to get rid of. 

Only when Tyler’s not there anymore, I came to realize, we, me and Marla, had never really spoken to one another. Not once.  
So one day I asked her, “What holds you up?”  
She said as if I was telling a joking, “holds what up?”  
“You know. You wake up in the morning. You breathe, and you blink.”  
“What’s so difficult about being alive?” she said, “you just live as if you are dead.”

She said she loved me. She said she could tell me apart from Tyler. I’d like to believe her. It’s just, whenever she lay her eyes on me, it’s like those eyes in the sunken socket are looking straight pass me. As if I wasn’t my body, I was something behind. Anything, the crumbling wallpaper, the worn-out pillowcases, the stinky magazine pages.  
Poor Marla. Who am I to blame her.  
Tyler saved me. And Tyler saved HER. Now Tyler’s gone, we’re left here like two little kids with nothing to do but staring at each other, only trying to find anything remaining here of HIM. If you ask me, I have never seen anything more stupid than that.

It’s not that I didn’t want to return the favor. Keeping my mind alive with half the soul I had had already been a chore. For all the gratitude I havd for her, there’s still no way in the world I could have the energy to act like I have two. So I just gave up. For a whole month I didn’t speak a word. Marla didn’t mind it too much, just buzzing around me was enough for her to keep herself entertained.  
Finally, I could be sure that she was whole. She didn’t need anybody to cling onto. There, I felt relieved.

One day I finally took the words out of my own mouth. I said, Marla, what are you wasting your time for. Just go. Tyler’s not here. Tyler’s gone. Tyler will never be back to you.  
She looked straight at me, like for once I actually existed. And for the first time ever, I was looking straight back at her. She slapped me in the face, the side without the wound. Somehow, I felt content.  
Last message I got from Marla, she said she’s not staying at that shithole anymore. She’ll be back to her hometown for a while and, that was it. That was her finally good-bye.

There’s been too much attention in the press since the big knock down. Fight Clubs all over the world were closing down one after another. Believe it or not, I couldn’t care less. I made all the Space Moneys go home with their bunk beds and funeral money, sold the last batch of soaps I had in the basement and burnt all the driver’s licenses in the backyard.  
Angel Face, all packed up and ready, said to me, “Anything else I can do for you, Sir?”  
I shook my head.  
“No need to wait three days this time.” I said before closing the door.  
He looked softly at me and nodded, like this time he really understood it.

The rusty water at Paper Street made my lips itchy and my eyes red. I started to wonder if there’s any reason for me to stay at all.  
I went back to the condo, my old trusty palace before it’s blown up by-, uhm, myself, only to found out the place was as good as new. Months ago, Space Monkeys threatened the insurance company, in ways I wouldn’t even want to say out load, and made them replaced all the furniture piece by piece. A box of surviving personal items sat peacefully on the Ying-Yang coffee table. Pillow cover zippers. Carpet scrub brushes. Name tags read Cornelius and other ones I couldn’t even remember being called by. The We-Are-Still-Men mug. Marla’s phone number. No Tyler’s. 

The smell of new furniture made me sick.  
Then my then-manager spoke through the message box.  
“I’ve heard about it all. I am very, very sorry. If you want to, come by the office on Monday. Everything will be back to normal.”  
Normal? What a funny word.  
I pushed the phone onto the floor and turned the ceiling light on using muscle memory. God was it bright in here. The condo was back to perfection. Perfection as in before Tyler ever showed up. Me in the dressing mirror too, perfect, only a bit slimmer. Even the goddamn hole in my face healed. 

“It’s like Tyler was never there”, I said. “All I had was a crazy wet dream.”  
“You’ve finally got it,” the guy in the armchair looked surprisingly pleased. “There never was a Tyler.”  
Fuck you.  
I walked out the door and made the sixty-minute therapy session ended at minute three. The guy rushed out and gave me two packs of sleeping tablets.

Did I never ask you to save me? Did I ever ask you to leave?  
No. I never asked for anything.  
It’s you. It’s always you. There you come and there you go. Easy-peasy. No big deal.  
Fuck you, Tyler, fuck you.

And the next time I woke up, I didn’t know which day it was, or what time in the day could it be. The weight of my own brain told me I was alive. I’ve never hated my brain that much.  
City lights came through the window and stabbed directly into my eyes.

I looked, squinting. Tyler was there, sitting by the window, taking a drag off a cigarette.  
I wanted to sit up, but made myself stop.  
I moved my lips, but didn’t say a word.  
I wouldn’t dare to move. Wouldn’t dare to think.  
I just lay there. Still as a dead man.  
Some say you’d wake up from a dream if your brain gets too excited.

But I wouldn’t dare to close my eyes neither, fearing that he would disappear into the darkness, dissolve into the night, slip through the crack of the window and be gone again forever.  
So I just stared at him. Oh what a Zen master.  
Then Tyler looked back.  
He took a puff and, strangely enough, I felt the smoke blowing onto my face. Not to mention there’s at least five foot between us.  
I couldn’t smell anything. For once, I breathed in as hard as I can as if I was holding on to dear life. As if without the smell of Tyler’s tobacco, I would suffocate to death.  
Oxygen can’t save you, oxygen makes you high. You’ll be calm as a cow before you know it. Ready. To. Surrender.

“Go to sleep.” I read his lips.  
“…stay.” I mumbled. My lips were as heavy as if they were made of stone. I didn’t even hear my own voice. I could have had just let out a moan and imagined he’d hear me.  
He chuckled, and smiled like he’s saying, “you’ll get better.” The same smile he had when he was leaving to tour the country while I was lying there half-dead after the crash.  
I am me. I am not Marla. How dare you trust me so much. 

Then I fell back into unconscious. Half a cup of water spilled on the night stand and dampened the empty tablet packaging.

Babies don’t sleep this well.

I think I smelled you on my pillow.  
I really did.  
You are real.  
Aren’t you, Tyler?


	2. Chinese Version

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 泰勒离开后，一切开始崩坍。

《后遗症》

我仍然不能相信自己在洛杉矶最高的楼顶一枪打爆了泰勒的后脑。  
把自己的左脸开了个洞之后，基本生活都成了问题。玛拉搬进纸街陪我。好心的玛拉。  
我想我是喜欢她的，甚至曾经是。在她眼里，世界的是个大垃圾场。人像易拉罐一样躺在垃圾堆底，沾满了过期的糖精。运气好的被埋葬，运气不好的被回收。万物都是垃圾，所以她随时准备好丢掉一切。

泰勒消失之后我才意识到，我们，我和她，甚至从未好好地说过话。  
有一天我问她，是什么支撑你。  
她问我，像是我刚讲了个笑话，支撑什么？  
我说，你知道，你醒来，你呼吸，你眨眼睛。  
她说，活着有什么难的，你当自己死了就好。

她说她爱我。她说她分得清我和泰勒。我愿意相信她。只是她看我的时候，凹陷的眼窝里的眼睛好像穿过我，好像我不是我的肉体，好像我是我背后的什么东西。破烂的墙纸，老旧的枕头套，发臭的杂志页。  
可怜的玛拉，我又怎么能怪她。  
泰勒的出现拯救了我，也拯救了她。而现在的泰勒走了，我们却要互相在对方身上找他。简直没有什么比这更蠢。

我并非不想回馈她的善意。只是我用半个灵魂的生命力养活一具肉体都已困难，又怎么可能有余力为她表演出两个人格。我干脆放弃了，整个月都没再说过一句话。玛拉也不太在意，就径自在我耳边自言自语。  
我渐渐确定她是完整的，不依附谁也可以活。因此我觉得有些放心。  
于是有一天我终于说，玛拉，你走吧，泰勒不在这儿，泰勒已经走了，泰勒不会再回来了。  
她直直看着我，我也直直看着她。她一巴掌打在我的右脸上，右耳震得嗡嗡响，那一刻我竟有点开心。  
后来玛拉在给我的最后一条电话留言里说，她退了廉租房，要回老家一趟，可能不会再回来。

那次信用公司大楼的爆炸引起了过多注意，各地的搏击俱乐部逐渐被查封。我让太空猴子们都带着折垫床和葬礼钱回家，卖了地下室存的最后一批肥皂，把泰勒门上贴的驾照在后院一把火烧掉。  
天使脸离开前站在门廊台阶下问，还有没有什么可以帮您做的，先生。我向他摇头。关上门之前又转身说，这次不用等上三天三夜了。他看了我一会，点了点头，此后再没有消息。  
纸街破屋生锈的自来水让我嘴唇发痒、眼角发红。我渐渐不知道独自留在纸街还有什么意义。  
于是我回到当初被——被我自己炸毁的档案柜抽屉一样的公寓，才发现几个月前太空猴子们就已经替我勒索了保险公司，按照我的购买记录还原了所有家具，墙边的纸箱里甚至还放着少量当初没被炸毁的个人物品。

新家具的味道直让我恶心。  
电话留声机里自动播放了以前老板的声音。  
“我已经听说过发生了什么，我感到很抱歉，如果你想的话，周一可以来公司一趟，我们谈谈，或许生活还可以像以前一样。”  
以前，什么以前。  
我胡乱地把电话摔到地上，凭着肌肉记忆拍开了屋顶吊灯。忽然亮起来的光线让我眼睛疼。这该死的公寓竟然被修复得和泰勒出现之前几乎一模一样。穿衣镜里我的样子也和那时一模一样。就连左脸上该死的洞都愈合了。

“就好像泰勒从来没出现过一样，”我说，“就好像我做了场春梦。”  
“你终于接受了这一点，”对方欣喜地看着我， “泰勒确实没出现过。”  
去你的。  
我在六十分钟的心理治疗疗程进行到第三分钟的时候摔门而出，医生追出门塞给我两包安眠药。

我从未求你拯救我，也从未叫你离开我。  
来是你，走也是你。  
去你的，泰勒，去你的。

下一次醒来的时候，我不知是哪天，也说不好是几点。脑子的重量让我意识到自己活着。我憎恨我的脑子。  
城市夜晚的灯光透过阳台落地窗照进我眼里。

我眯着眼睛看向窗子，泰勒正斜坐在窗台上看着窗外抽烟。  
我下意识地想坐起来，又立即停下了。  
我张了张嘴，没有说话。  
我不敢思考，不敢多想。  
我躺在原地不动。  
有人说梦会因为大脑活动兴奋而醒来。

我又不敢闭上眼睛，怕他融进黑暗里，顺着窗户缝溜走。  
我就这么看着他。什么也不想。真是个禅宗大师。  
后来泰勒回头了。  
他吐出一口烟。我们中间明明隔着五英尺，我却感觉烟雾都跑到我的脸上。  
我闻不到任何味道。我拼命地大口呼吸，像是没有这烟味我就会死。  
我想起第一次遇见泰勒时他说的，客舱失压时飞机提供的氧气，并不能救你，但它让你嗨，让你有接受命运的错觉。

“睡吧。”我隔着烟雾读他的唇语。  
“……留下。”  
我喃喃道。我觉得嘴唇重极了。声音低得连我自己都听不清。可能只是哼了一声，然后我努力想象他听到了。  
他笑了。一副“你会好起来”的笑容。像是我刚坐在他的副驾上被撞个半死，他却提着箱子就要开始全国飞行那时离开前的笑容一样。  
我又不是玛拉，你他妈怎么这么放心。  
后来我一头栽在枕头上失去了意识，或许还不小心碰掉了床头两整合拆光的安眠药和小半杯水。

婴儿都不会睡得这么好。

我觉得我在枕头上闻到了你。  
我确实闻到了。  
你是真的。  
不是吗，泰勒？


End file.
